Tourism & Hotel Marketing Consultant | Hospitality & Destination Management Trainer | Speaker
Dr. Dimitris Koutoulas has a Ph.D. in Tourism Marketing and works as a marketing and management consultant in the tourism, hotel, event and publishing industries since 1990. He is Assistant Professor of Tourism & Hospitality Management and Marketing at the University of Patras.
Dimitris implemented assignments in 31 countries on behalf of private and public-sector clients and partners from Greece, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the UK, the USA, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Hungary, Australia, etc. His consultation appointments include projects on behalf of Ministries, National and Local Tourism Organisations, the European Union, Chambers of Commerce, Industry Associations and private companies.
Dimitris also has a long hands-on experience in marketing tourist destinations and individual businesses through designing and implementing integrated marketing campaigns, public relations activities and the production of travel guides and websites.
Dimitris has participated in several hotel rating projects with the design of star classification systems, hotel quality assessments through mystery guest inspections, hotel awards etc. He has inspected and assessed hundreds of hotels and restaurants in nine countries.
Dimitris is an experienced researcher and analyst who regularly conducts surveys among hotels, tourist boards, convention bureaux and other entities. He has published several research reports and analyses of the Greek and international tourism, hospitality and meetings industries and he is also the author of numerous academic papers. He has been invited as a speaker to many conferences in Greece and abroad.
In addition, Dimitris has been working as an event producer. He has organised concert tours around the world, opera performances and mega events designed by Gert Hof such as the Athens Millennium celebration at the Acropolis and the world’s largest corporate event with the christening of the cruise ship AIDAdiva in Hamburg.
Specialties: Tourism; Market and branding research; Marketing strategies for tourist destinations and businesses; Setting up or restructuring destination marketing organisations (DMOs) at the local or national level; Hotel star ratings; Production of travel guides, destination websites and audio books; Designing cost-efficient marketing campaigns; International publicity campaigns; Designing one-of-a-kind mega events as dynamic publicity generators (both on a national and global scale); MICE industry expert